ABSTRACT

Visualisation is much more than cartography. Traditional urban planners are using cartography quite a lot, passing gradually from paper cartography to computer cartography. But now computers can go beyond conventional cartography, especially by using the capabilities of animation, augmented reality, real time and so on. It is very possible to affirm that a new kind of cartography is emerging (Müller and Laurini 1997), the main characteristics of which are as follows:

• exclusive use of computers, no more paper-based cartography • screens, and especially high-resolution screens in use • dynamic aspects, or in other words animated cartography, especially in

real time • active aspects, that is to say the connections with hypermaps or

hyperlinks.